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Topic: The Video Rental Thread (Read 68038 times)

I always wondered why no one ever began a thread that dealt with what people rented and what they thought of them since a lot of the movies watched is from video rentals. Video rentals in variation are so massive that they never seemed worthy of many threads alone for any one film, so I will begin by saying what I thought of the last two movies I rented.

Secretary: An unbelievably bad movie that actually makes sado machism a very boring thing in general. The movie never gets out of various plot points for what it wants to communicate to show any freedom that something can be surprising at all. The ending is so contrived and ridiculous that speaking about it seems like a waste of time. Only thing I got of pleasure from the movie was that Maggie Gyllenhaal has a nice body. I read somewhere where a critic, the lady from the show Hot Ticket, said that it was one of the most original movies she had ever seen before. That seemed like it was the farthest from what it was.

Personal Velocity: Elements of it I admired, but really a tired movie that seems like it wants to capture the fiction portion of a book within a movie. The end results seems like what Virginia Woolf once complained about the movies, and it is that they felt like one syllable words in a novel. Everything about this movie feels like bad fiction, where the obvious is overstated and it seems pretensious oversteps the cinematic value that could be gained if the movie slowed itself down, realized the amount that could be told in a story, and decided to just tell that story.

I actually haven't had a video store membership in almost two years, and thus haven't rented any movies in a long time. I do get them from the library, though, which I guess is renting. The last two I checked out was The Umbrellas Of Cherbourg (which was great, but I missed the last five minutes because of a scratch on the damn disc!) and Network (which of course is great, but I hadn't seen it in years, long enough to make me surprised at exacty how much Spike Lee took from it for 'Bamboozled')

I didn't like Secretary either, although the performances definitely made it watchable. I liked Personal Velocity, but it did feel so much like a short story collection that I'd almost rather have read the short stories they were based on (from writer/director Rebecca Miller).

The corpses all hang headless and limp bodies with no surprises and the blood drains down like devil’s rain we’ll bathe tonight I want your skulls I need your skulls I want your skulls I need your skulls Demon I am and face I peel to see your skin turned inside out, ’cause gotta have you on my wall gotta have you on my wall, ’cause I want your skulls I need your skulls I want your skulls I need your skulls collect the heads of little girls and put ’em on my wall hack the heads off little girls and put ’em on my wall I want your skulls I need your skulls I want your skulls I need your skulls

i rented 13 conversations about one thing. I thought the script was excellent. performances were excellent. i thought the directing was a little bland. there were sequence that were gorgeous -- especially when the white shirt blows away -- some sequences seemed a little awkward, would have loved to see this script in the hands of another director -- all around a i really enjoyed -- alan arkin is the man.

I enjoyed this movie as well, I took a chance with it and actually enjoyed it...yes, bland at times...but the way the whole thing circles around and never really has a definate timeline until it's completion was pretty cool....not too bad.

Also....Anyone else see Tadpole?? It was kinda cool...shot on DV and the story wasn't that bad...although kinda Taboo...but overall I felt it was a good flick!

i just saw secretary as well. eh. it started off well, but quickly degraded into shit. they could have gone in such an interesting direction with that thing, but it just becomes stoopit.

I borrowed a lot of movies from my friend this week (the one that got all the criterions). Here goes...

George Washington - AwesomeBrazil - AwesomeWithnail and I - AmusingThunderball - an OK bond movie. not a criterion, i'm aware.Dead Ringers - Fucking rocks8 1/2 - I was so sleepy when I watched this that it just went over my head. there were things there that i loved about it, and then there were parts where i'd nod off and have no idea what was going on when i looked back up. i have to watch this again.

I got Far From Heaven for tonight. Netflix, I love you.

Logged

The corpses all hang headless and limp bodies with no surprises and the blood drains down like devil’s rain we’ll bathe tonight I want your skulls I need your skulls I want your skulls I need your skulls Demon I am and face I peel to see your skin turned inside out, ’cause gotta have you on my wall gotta have you on my wall, ’cause I want your skulls I need your skulls I want your skulls I need your skulls collect the heads of little girls and put ’em on my wall hack the heads off little girls and put ’em on my wall I want your skulls I need your skulls I want your skulls I need your skulls